When Heaven Shines On Us
by Marigold Winters
Summary: What do you do when your life is falling apart before your very eyes.Who do you turn to.It takes time to learn that sometimes the people you trust are the ones capable of hurting you the most...
1. Chapter 1

When Heaven Shines On Us

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the works of J.K Rowling, though I wish I did... Thanks to my awesome Beta Bardess-of-Faerun! I honestly couldn't continue this without her. Enjoy anyway, and review!!**

**Mari**

The sun shone through my bedroom window lighting on the glittering object in my hand that I played with absently. From downstairs the sounds of shouts and yells drifted through the house and seeped under my bedroom door. I had come to recognize these as merely the beginnings oftheir arguments and thus come to dread the arrival of nightfall when,behind closed doors all pretences were gone and the happygo-lucky family that everybody saw dissappered. I had long since learned how to tune out the noise of their screaming matches but some things I couldn't help but hear.

"She's a lazy know-it-all and far too spoiled by all of you."

"Jacob she's just a child, barely seventeen. How do you expect her to be able to fend for herself at that age?"

" She'll learn Ivy. At that age I had my first job and was actually contributing to the community. She's never had to look after herself because she's been far too sheltered by you."

" She's been through- "

"_Enough. _You coddle her far too much Ivy. She has to go."

"Jacob!"

" She should've left weeks ago."

" Just give her some time. Please just leave her for a while."

"Time? I've given her time. Bloody hell!Twenty years' worth of investments are all riding on her and she doesn't even care enough to get a decent mark on her SAT's!"

It was always the same. I could almost predict their actions, regular as clockwok every single night. My mother always made tired attempts to defend me that wereinstantly quashed by Jacob. I loved her for trying but honestly, I really didn't think it was worth it anymore. Jacob demanded power in the household, and got it by any means necessary. It had been that way for years and my mum,playing the par of the subservient little wife never thought todo anythingto prevent him.They argued all right.Some of my earliest memories were of flying crockery and arguments so huge they would leave me crying in a corner of my room. And then whenJacob got fed up or my mum gave in, whichever came first, I would be left with a broken mess I was expected to clean up.

Petunia had been there with me through all of that. she had looked after me and basically raised me from the age of five.She looked after me, and during thes arguments she had been always there to hold me. Up until two months ago. I knew shewould leave someday, that she would get married and have her own life. I just didn't expect it to be so soon. She never even offered to bring me withher. She of all people knew exactly how I felt but hadn't spared me a second thought as she left with her new husband. Vernon Dursley.He really was a strange man.Very short, very round and very disapproving - of me. I didn't really care what he thought, but she did.She never even said goodbye.

I could handle the sudden blow-ups. I could handle the way they both lashed out at me so suddenly. I just couldn't handle it alone. My family was falling apart right before my eyes and I could see our foundation ripping at the seams. It didn't really seem as though we had anything in common anymore except the fact that we lived together. Not only that. I'd begun to notice little things about Jacob that my mum seemed to deliberately overlook. Like the fact that he always came back at two in the morning these days. Intoxicated and smelling of jasmine. Always in the office at unbelievably late hours. A sudden passion for designer suits and expensive shoes. I could see exactly what was happening, and she could too. She just didn't want to believe it.So this was my place. The only place I was able to escape to.Alone in my room listening to the screaming soundtrack to my life and trying to pretend it would all go away. Trying to find a way to drown out this pain tearing me apart and to forget. Just to forget...

I looked down at my hand in surprise as I felt something wet trickling down my skin. Warm, wet and sticky. Red rivulets ran down my arm from the crook of my elbow. Dripping and pooling in the little crescents of skin between my fingers, staining my clothes and falling to the floor in largescarlet droplets. Falling like tears. My eyes glanced from the criss crossed scores on my arm to the glinting razor blade in my hand, now stained with my blood. When... how did i do that? I didn't mean to,I didn't intend to. I only thought about it for a second. I averted my eyes with a feeling of deep shame and complete disgust. What was I turning into? The Lily Evans of two years ago would never even have considered anything like this. Sowho was I now? I never even felt it.The pain was there but not enough. It didn't help at all.

**Love it? Hate It? I don't really care as long as you review!... you know you want to.**

**Mari**


	2. Chapter 2

**Okay, now I'm gonna try and get her away from the safe setting at home and more aware of the magical side of things. Or as much as she can be without giving the plot away completely.Tell me what you think.**

**Disclaimer; This means that no matter how much I hope and dream for it to be mine ther's not a chance in hell and they'd sue my ass off if I didn't write this so... bah.**

**Mari**

I woke once again in the middle of the night lying on the floor. I realized I hadn't even made it to the bed before I collapsed. Dried blood clung to my clothes and skin, determinedly refusing to be brushed off. Detachedly I realized they were arguing again, that's what had woken me in the first place. But... it seemed so silent. Their voices seemed unnaturally hushed. Why care now about being overheard?

Following a gut feeling I walked out onto the landing and sat on the top stair staring into the living room and watching the scene unfold. I wanted to turn back so badly, but something kept pulling me back. Telling me to stay.

" I don't want to be married anymore Ivy."

I stared at Jacob in shock. He couldn't have said that. It wasn't true, what reason would he have to say that. No... I knew what reason but why here? Why now? My mom looked as shocked as I felt. Difference was, she didn't seem so surprised. It seemed to take forever for her to speak again but when she did it was in a small quiet voice that none-the-less spoke volumes about her anger.

" So that's it Jacob? No explanation? No apologies, nothing?"

He groaned rolling his eyes and running his hands down his face. A face which I wanted to punch so badly at that moment.

" Don't do this Ivy... God I should have told you months ago."

His voice was light and unrepentant. He didn't care that my mom was falling apart at the seams. He just plain didn't care. Every now and again his eyes would flick to his wristwatch. As if he had somewhere better to be.

" Who... who is she?"

" It doesn't matter."

It doesn't matter? What the hell? How could he... that... why? I could feel tears streaming down my face in compensation of the remarkable absence of them on her cheeks. How could she be so strong?

" It doesn't matter? So you're not denying you're seeing anyone... it just doesn't matter?"

" Yeah I guess. At first I thought it was just a phase. That it would go away in time but now- "

" Now what? Tell me how old she even is. Nineteen? Twenty?"

" Twenty four okay. I met her almost a year ago."

And for the first time I saw him cringe and his eyes flash in a manner I could only call regret. I doubted it was regret at what he'd done. No he was too selfish for that. He only regretted letting it slip that he'd been sleeping with her for over a year. He'd been sleeping with a girl young enough to be his daughter just because it made him feel more like a man.

" A year? You've been with her for a year?"

" Whatever Ivy. What I do with my life after you and I divorce is really none of your business."

" You owe me more than that. I'm your wife, she's not."

" No."

He grinned lecherously, as if reminiscing.

" She's better."

That was it for me. I went down the stairs and into the living room not caring that I took them both by surprise, not caring that the bloodstains on my clothes were plainly visible. How could he do this? Not to me. I didn't care about me, but my mom. That piece of scum. How could he do this to her after he'd gone down the aisle with her and promised her forever? And how could she just stand there and let him treat her that way after all he'd done? I couldn't stand by and watch this anymore. I had just stood by and watched this happen for the past few years and look where it brought us. No more.

" Get out Jacob."

My voice was low and dangerous as I felt the pure unadulterated rage flowing through my veins and centering on the place just above my heart with a tension I didn't know how to contain.

" We don't want you here. We don't need you here and we don't want to see your face any more than necessary. Leave."

My voice sounded so foreign to my ears. Like it was someone else speaking and I was just watching from the sidelines. On the outside looking in- in a sense.

" And just what can you do to make me? If I want to stay here then I will and there's nothing you can do to stop me Lily flower."

He looked at me triumphantly, mockingly in a way that clearly said he'd won. It incensed me even more and made the tension in my chest pull and strain against every nerve as I struggled to control it. To keep it inside. But still I felt like I might explode from the crushing pressure that was still building within me.

" Nothing. You. Can. Do."

A spray of spit erupted from his mouth showering my face and body with every word. Intentional or not it finally pulled the trigger and I let it go. All that energy inside me was released as my anger reached an all time high battling for first place with an overwhelming sorrow.

" AAaaaaaahhhhhh..."

A harsh cry tore itself from the back of my throat and I threw all of it at him. The source of every single thing that had gone wrong in my life since I was old enough to remember.

_" Make it go away. Make it stop. Make it stop..."_

I don't exactly remember what happened after that. Red and blue sparks danced across my vision swirling and twisting in intricate patterns before my eyes. Then, like a parting fog, they disappeared just as quickly as they arrived sweeping away that terrible pressure as they left. I and my mum were all that was left standing in the living room as everything seemed to be completely destroyed. Actually maybe not everything... just everything of Jacob's.

All the family photos were torn and slashed where his face should've been. His rugby ball and hurling stick were scattered around the room in pieces, damaged beyond repair. All of his brief cases were torn apart and ripped paper covered the room like snow. His Rolex watch, his pride and joy, was shattered on the floor. And at my feet where Jacob used to be, coiling and uncoiling on the ground, writhing in what seemed to have been confusion was a long. Cold. Black. Snake.


End file.
